Seven Stanford faculty members have been
elected to the National Academy of Sciences
(NAS): physicists Robert L. Byer and Leonard
Susskind, electrical engineer Thomas Kailath,
neurobiologist William T. Newsome, biochemist
Eric M. Shooter, mathematician George C.
Papanicolaou and molecular and cellular
physiologist Richard H. Scheller.

They are among 60 new members and 15 foreign
associates selected May 2 "in recognition of
their distinguished and continuing achievements
in original research." Election to the NAS
is one of the highest honors that can be bestowed
upon an American scientist or engineer.

With this election, the total number of
Stanford faculty serving on the NAS rises to 122,
plus an additional three affiliated with the
Hoover Institution. The NAS now has 1,843 active
members and 320 foreign associates.

The NAS is a private organization of
scientists and engineers dedicated to furthering
science and its use for the general welfare.
Established by a congressional act in 1863, the
NAS, upon request, advises the federal government
on matters of science and technology.

Byer is a professor of applied physics and
director of both the Center for Nonlinear Optical
Materials and the Hansen Experimental Physics
Laboratory. He has made important contributions
to the development and application of lasers,
with 35 patents to his credit. He initiated
research in remote sensing using tunable laser
sources. His efforts were used to develop a
commercial system for remote sensing of sulfur
dioxide, carbon monoxide, methane, water and
atmospheric temperature. Another project led to
the development of a special kind of laser used
in X-ray microscopes. He has played a central
role in understanding the nonlinear optical
characteristics of lithium niobate, a material
that can shift laser light from red to blue
wavelengths. Since blue wavelengths are shorter
than red, blue light is used in CD-ROM-type data
storage systems to create higher storage
densities than are possible with red light. Other
research interests include application of laser
sources to gravitational wave detection, electron
acceleration and interactions between lasers and
materials. Byer is a fellow of the Optical
Society of America, American Physical Society,
American Association for the Advancement of
Science and the Lasers and Electro-optics Society
of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics
Engineers (IEEE). He is also a member of the
National Academy of Engineering.

Kailath, the Hitachi America Professor of
Electrical Engineering, has worked in many fields
in engineering and mathematics. His research
emphasized information theory and communications
in the 1960s, systems and control in the 1970s
and very large scale integration (VLSI) design
and signal processing in the 1980s. His current
work deals with applications of signal
processing, computation and control to problems
in telecommunications and manufacturing. Kailath
has received awards from the IEEE Information
Theory Society, the IEEE Signal Processing
Society and the American Control Council. He is a
fellow of the IEEE and the Institute of
Mathematical Statistics and is a member of the
National Academy of Engineering.

Newsome, professor of neurobiology, is
pursuing answers to some of the most fundamental
questions in neuroscience: How is information
processed within the brain, and how does this
processing result in organized, purposeful
behavior? To answer these questions, Newsome, an
investigator at the Howard Hughes Medical
Institute, focuses on how nerve cells in the
brain translate signals received from the eyes
into the experience of vision. He gathers insight
by studying rhesus monkeys trained to perform
visual discrimination tasks. In particular, his
work has contributed to the understanding of how
monkeys perceive motion direction. Newsome joined
the Stanford faculty in 1988. He has been awarded
many honors for his scientific work, including
the Rank Prize in Opto-electronics, the Minerva
Foundation's Golden Brain Award and Columbia
University's Spencer Award.

Papanicolaou is the Robert Grimmett Professor
of Mathematics. His major fields are applied
mathematics and probability theory, especially
concerning the solution of random ordinary and
partial differential equations. One aspect of his
research is the use of computers to study general
properties of waves in random materials. This
work has implications for seismic studies,
land-mine eradication efforts and theory of
composite materials and suspensions. Papanicolaou
has more than 150 academic papers to his credit.
He was elected to the American Academy of Arts
and Sciences on April 15.

Scheller, a professor of molecular and
cellular physiology, focuses his research on
understanding the mechanisms of neurotransmitter
release through the characterization of proteins
associated with a cell's synaptic vesicles.
Scheller, a biochemist and Howard Hughes Medical
Institute investigator, has identified plasma
membrane and soluble proteins critical for the
neurotransmitter-release process. A series of
elegant biochemical studies led by Scheller has
resulted in a mechanistic pathway accounting for
the docking and activation of vesicles, which
leads to membrane fusion and neurotransmitter
release. These mechanisms extend to non-neural
cells and have provided an intellectual framework
for understanding the molecular basis of the
organization of membrane compartments and protein
trafficking in all cells. The concepts advanced
in Scheller's work are also important in
understanding the chemical basis of learning and
memory. Over his career he has won many awards,
including a National Science Foundation Alan T.
Waterman Award in 1989 and a National Academy of
Sciences award in molecular biology in 1997.

Shooter, a professor of neurobiology, has been
a Stanford faculty member for more than 35 years
and was the first chair of the Department of
Neurobiology. He has provided key insights into
the mechanism of the development and regeneration
of nerve cells and recently into the genetic
basis of the major inherited disease of the human
peripheral nervous system. More than 30 years
ago, Shooter isolated pure nerve growth factor
(NGF). His studies of nerve growth factor
dramatically advanced the field of neuroscience
and paved the way for promising new forms of
treatment for neurodegenerative diseases. He
heads a group of researchers investigating
neurotrophins -- the proteins that keep nerve
cells alive -- and the genes that underlie
peripheral neuropathies. Shooter has become
increasingly active in biotechnology in recent
years. He is a member of many prestigious
organizations including the Royal Society of
London, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
and the Institute of Medicine. Among his many
honors is a lifetime achievement award, the 1995
Ralph W. Gerard Prize in Neuroscience, which
honors Shooter's work on neurotrophins.

Susskind holds the Felix Bloch Professorship
in Physics. String theory, which posits that the
building blocks of the universe are unimaginably
small vibrating strings, owes its origins to
Susskind and Y. Nambu of the University of
Chicago. In the 1990s Susskind extended string
theory to the problem of black holes,
supermassive collapsed objects surrounded by a
gravitational field so strong that not even light
can escape it. Susskind also has made many
contributions to elementary particle physics,
quantum field theory and cosmology. Among
Susskind's honors are his election to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences and his
winning of the 1998 J. J. Sakurai Prize for
theoretical particle physics. He directs the
Institute for Theoretical Physics, which through
its visitor programs provides campus theorists an
opportunity to participate in cutting-edge
research.